To ‘spot print’ means to print directly a certain ink or head on the printer from a spot layer in your design.  For example, to white or fluorescent ink.    

Spot printing from AVA through a third party RIP

Firstly, you need to set up some Settings .

Go to AVA > Settings > Printer and under Printing Mode, tick Overprinted Image and Spot Printing Layers as per the snapshot below.

• Overprinted Image (using the CMS Controller Printer Profile) - uses AVA’s default colour matching and proofs colours through your printer’s profile. If this is switched off, AVA assumes you wish to spot print every layer.
• Spot Printing Layers - switches Spot Printing on. If this is not switched on, Spot Printing will not work.
• Into Overprinted image - merges the spot layer data into the composite CMYK image.  If this option is not ticked, 8 additional channels will be created when the file is printed, and the file will not print because the rip will not understand the file type.

Set the profile

Set the CMYK printer profile which was created in the third party rip as your printer profile (output profile in AVA 5.9 or higher) in the AVA CMS Controller.

Turn on your Gamut Warnings

This lets you see clearly which layers are set as spot printing layers, and which are not.

1. Go to AVA Menu > Inspectors > Warnings…
2. Tick Gamut Warnings on Colour Blocks.
   

Set the Custom Overprint Picker in ColourSys

You need to set your colour picker to the Custom Overprint Picker in ColourSys.

1. Go to ColourSys Menu > Settings > Colour Picker, and select Custom Overprint.
2. Open the picker (Colour Menu > Pick) and set your Custom Overprint and Tone DB at the top of the picker, then close the window by clicking OK.

Recolour the layers you wish to print as Spot

In the Layers Palette in AVA, ⌥ (option key) click on the colour block to open the Custom Overprint Picker. In the snapshot below, and the red layer is being assigned to the magenta and orange heads on the printer.

Notice the Spot Print icon appear on the right hand side of the colour block in the Layers Palette, this indicates that the colour is make with the Custom Overprint Picker, without making the colour with the Custom Overprint Picker the software will not know which head to 'spot print' to.

Colour any other layers you want to direct to specific heads on the printer.

Locate the Spot Print column in the Layers Palette. You may have to stretch the Layers Palette wider to find this for the first time. It can then be repositioned to more accessible location within the Layers Palette.

Click on the Printer icon next to the layer you want to spot print, see example below.

Print the file through your normal workflow.

The printed file

If you open the printed document back into AVA, you can see how the spool file is composed.

A composite image is created from all the layers which were visible at the time of printing, and this image is tagged with the printer profile from the AVA CMS Controller.

Beneath the image, are addition channels. These hold the information for the spot printed layers.